Populism i Sverige: En textanalys av populismens förekomst och skepnad i Vänsterpartiet och Sverigedemokraterna

Sammanfattning: Populism is an ambiguous concept in contemporary politics as it is multifaceted in its nature and expression. However, the fundamental characteristic of a populist actor is their adherence to the will of the people and their opposition to an adverse elite. In Swedish political discourse, the socialist Left Party and nationalist Sweden Democrats have been described as populist. By using an ideational approach to the study of populism and implementing a qualitative textual analysis, this paper examines external as well as internal party-material to identify populist tendencies within the Left Party and the Sweden Democrats. Furthermore, a discussion of how the two parties and their respective ideologies, socialism and nationalism, weaponizes populism is provided. The study concludes that both parties are populist, although the Left Party adopts more of a “front-stage” populism whilst the Sweden Democrats express a “back-stage” populism. Additionally, their core ideologies galvanize populist expressions differently as the nationalism of the Sweden Democrats seemingly fits better with the populist view of “the people”.